Archive
A Look Back at Cataclysm…
So here we are…less than 24 hours from the launch of the newest World of Warcraft expansion, Mists of Pandaria.
I’m still neutral on a new expansion. I discussed my thoughts at length last night with a guildie and shared that right now, for me, the biggest draw of the new content is going to be the day I step into the new raids. I’m looking forward to strategizing with my cotank, figuring out how we’re going to handle the fights, looking forward to the motivation of downing new content.
But instead of looking forward into the crystal ball at the content I haven’t run yet, let’s look back on Cataclysm in general!
Launch and Tier 11
I don’t really recall Cataclysm’s launch. I wasn’t in an active guild,4 so I wasn’t in any rush to level. I was on a high population realm, Area 52, so I think I actually didn’t bother to log in for a couple days until the initial rush died off. Not to mention that it was in the middle of the holiday season, so I was busy baking and preparing to entertain guests.
I leveled my first Paladin, Valkyrii (my Wrath main), to 85, and then followed up by leveling my hunter, Mirina (my BC main). At some point Raziel was thrown into the mix, along with my Death Knight (Azrael), my Priest (Gabriel), my Mage (Raaena), and my Warlock (Kiiera). To this day, I haven’t leveled the rest of my alts (2 shaman, a warrior, a rogue, another DK (who is now set up for Herald of the Titans), and my druid), because the Cata content got dry very quickly.
I decided that I wanted to go back to raiding (I had taken T9 and T10 off from guild raiding, and instead PuGged through ToC and ICC), so I started looking around. Not seeing many options on realm, I decided to start recruiting. We had almost gotten a solid team, but no one wanted to focus on gearing and I ended up deciding to transfer off the realm.
That’s one of the challenges with large population realms–there’s a ton of people, but there’s also more guilds than you can shake a stick at.
So as Tier 11 approached it’s end, and I still hadn’t started raiding, I began searching off realm for a new home.
I ended up transferring Raz to Drenden to raid with Rades‘ guild, Tsu Tain Guu Faitaa, otherwise known as TTGF!
Tier 12
I ended up joining TTGF to tank full-time in Firelands. Which, looking back on Firelands, was pretty damn fun. Dog tanking on Shannox, chasing adds around on Rhyolith, and eating Decimation strikes on Baleroc (ouch).
Firelands was a fun tier, but I still have heartburn over the fact that we missed the nerf bat by a week on the raid. We had been working so hard on Ragnaros, and almost had him down. But due to our inability to sync schedules for weekend raids, we missed our chance for our pre-nerf kill.
It was a sad day.
We dabbled with some Heroic bosses, but primarily stayed with normal clears through the raid. The bigger challenge for me was our raid times. I was raiding 10p-1a while having to make a weekly client meeting the following morning, requiring me to be about 3 hours after I went to bed (assuming raid wrapped at 1a). My body couldn’t keep up with the time difference, and I had to look for another place with better aligned raid times (the challenge of raiding with a West Coast guild!).
Firelands was great because I finally got to focus on what I loved doing best, tanking. I had healed in Wrath, dabbling with tanking when my GM was willing to respec to Holy for me tank 5-mans. I was never able to tank in a raid environment (the downside of having a BiS healing set for the time), so Firelands was the first chance I got to fully climb into the tanking driver’s seat and get ready for the ride.
And it was totally worth the lack of sleep to do it!
BlizzCon
BlizzCon fell towards the end of Firelands, and I had a blast! I got the opportunity to meet a ton of the folks I get to talk to on Twitter and to spend some time with some of the great WoW personalities! I even got some time to talk to Ghostcrawler himself about tanking at the Charity Dinner (which was super cool as well)!
While at BlizzCon though, I got to meet a ton of members of my future (and current) guild, Enveloping Shadows! It was fun to be able to sit down, drink, and socialize with a large majority of the officers!
Soon after I returned home, I applied as a healer (hilarious, I know), and was accepted. I transferred over a couple weeks later and dove into Firelands with a 25-man team, trying to wrap my brain around healing. I actually healed for our H. Alysrazor kill!
But there were only a couple weeks left in Firelands, and then we headed into Tier 13…
Tier 13
Tier 13 started with some healing fun, but before Christmas I had swapped back to Prot almost full time. I’d heal as necessary (I do actually have a pretty nice healing set on Raz now…and a pretty nice Ret set…and yea…), when we managed to be short a healer.
Tier 13 was the first time that I can say that I tanked an entire raid, start to finish, on all difficulties. I got to down Deathwing on Heroic mode several times!
Tier 13 was interesting…I went from 25-man raiding back down to a 10s team. I watched as we were almost barely able to fill a raid towards the end of the tier. I watched people decide to “retire” from raiding, shrinking our pool to the point that we were pulling in non-raiding guild members that we hoped could hit buttons or soak an Hour to pulling in people like Rades once Dragon Soul went RealID wide.
Rades has bailed my ass out repeatedly. Thanks dude!
The Miscellaneous…
Since we got to the point that we were clearing H. Dragon Soul in 2 hours, we had a lot of time to fill. ES took some time to backtrack into Tier 11 and clean house in H. Bastion of Twilight, capturing our first guild Heroic clear and downing Sinestra, to heading to Throne of the Four Winds and cleaning up H. Al’Akir. We went back to play in Blackwing Descent, but still, to this day, H. Nefarian still isn’t playing nice…maybe at 90.
In Conclusion…
Cata, while not the most “thrilling” expansion to me (I still haven’t quested through all the low level content), brought about a lot of changes in my play style. I’m back to raiding full-time, having an integral spot on a raid team, having a raid team that I usually love signing on to hang out with (usually because some nights I’m just not in a mood for people).
As the clock ticks down, I spent time cleaning out Raz’s bank, taking some time to gear my unplayed hunter (she went from 333 ilvl to 375 last night thanks to guildies carrying me through dungeons), and playing around. I haven’t been online much in WoW lately, but the past couple days I wanted to go back and play the content. I pulled people through dungeons, both guildies and PuGs, for the shear fun of seeing how fast we could clear the content before I never set foot in them again. I’ve run ZG, ZA, and even multiple Deadmines. I even did a full clear of H. Halls of Origination yesterday afternoon!
To me, that’s the perfect send off. Remember what you did in this expansion, and run it with the people who bring you joy in the game world, and in turn, energize yourself for what’s right around the corner.
In less than 15 hours MoP is live…I wish everyone the best with leveling! I’ll see you in Heroics soon!
Protected: Miri’s H10M Team – Important Info
4.3.2 – RealID Raiding
So a discussion had apparently started yesterday on Twitter–one which I apparently missed because I wasn’t paying much attention to Twitter (aside from bemoaning the fail I was finding in LFR all day). The talk of being able to RealID raid with your cross-realm friends has been noted in the 4.3.2 patch notes, and the Twitter community is fairly close–some members get together for parties, see each other at BlizzCon, text/call each other, etc. Some of us have even run cross-realm 5-mans when the RealID option first appeared. It should be no surprise that with the newest PTR data, the hash tag, #10MTwitter and #25MTwitter were born.
But then there’s the challenge–I love all my Tweeps, and I don’t want to alienate anyone who would want to run stuff. And I love running the old content, but there’s still a lot I’d like to accomplish, and haven’t accomplished yet, with the Cata tiers.
And so I pondered. And I went to my favorite thinking spot (my shower). And I thought some more. And then it hit me. I could achieve my goals for Cata, while playing with people who were of the same mindset.
And so my plan was born.
Miri’s RealID Heroic 10M
Who: A selected group of interested individuals for a team
What: T11/12 Heroic modes and achievements
When: 2 nights a week, most likely Thursday & Friday from 9p-12a Eastern
Why: Because I feel weird if I’m not doing difficult stuff in WoW–I like achievements and I like fights that require effort
If You’re Interested…
Drop me a comment and let me know if you want to keep it private. I am being selective and have had some communication with people who I have played with in the past and some that I play with now to gauge their interest.
If you’re a solid player and have a desire to see the Heroic endings of several raid tiers, are willing to come as supplied and prepared as you do for a progression night with your own guild, and are Horde, please let me know!
I’m Still Here…
Let's Hear it for Our Shaman - First Heroic Alys Kill (Pic by Rhidach)
Another one of those short and pointless blog posts that I seem to have an overwhelming tendency to make now.
I’m still alive, and still killing stuff in WoW (when it’s not killing me as the header pic shows)! I’ve added Heroic Domo and Heroic Alys to my collection of kills, basically relearned how to heal as Holy (it’s a completely different play style in 25s) and have discovered that I basically can’t heal 10s or 5s in my current gearing style. You’ll get some great shields, but with basically no haste? You’re screwed >.> So I guess I’ll continue tanking 5s when I get bored and need to cap VP.
Real life has sorta crit me hard–work has been absolutely hellacious and I’ve been prone to frustrated outbursts and panic attacks (as Twitter has been witness to) depending on what’s tossed at me. I’m in desperate need of this Thanksgiving break so I can unwind, get some WoW time in, and just do no work.
Things to come (this should look familiar):
- Discussion about Paladins and Mastery healing in 25s
- Heroic Alysrazor strat
- Heroic Domo strat
- Heroic Shannox strat
- Gear review for 4.3 (Prot and Holy)
And I’m sure I’ll think of more stuff. But anyways, I do still exist and I’m still really active on Twitter, so if you need something, or have a topic idea, hit me up there!
–Miri
A Change of Scenery…
I never thought this SS would be spot on in the future..
As some of you know, I’ve been an East Coast resident keeping up with the a West Coast raiding team. I’ve been raiding 10p-1a my time for the past 4 months, which was working out at the very beginning…and then one of my coworkers retired and I was “gifted” his accounts. While not the most awful thing, my engagement level with my clients stepped up, and I was going from a raid night to a very restless (and short, usually about 4 hours) sleep to a caffeine fueled work day. It was a running amusement on Twitter watching me struggle to make it through Thursdays; 2 cups of coffee as I left the house, a venti from Starbucks to get into my office, and then 1-2 Red Bulls and then a Coke on my way home. I was meeting clients looking (and feeling) like a zombie, and I just couldn’t keep it up any longer. I already work long days, but taxing my much needed sleep was becoming too much–days filled with headaches, me getting snappy in vent as exhaustion kicked in and I still had 2 hours left of tanking to go.
I spent a good chunk of BlizzCon catching up on sleep. 12-14 hours of sleep and I began to feel rested, with the dawning realization that I’m unable to handle random sleep patterns while remaining employed and never knowing what each day will bring me. It was a difficult decision, because I liked the people I was guilded with, but Mal and I were the early players because of the time difference. Things got started late, and finished even later for us. We agreed that even though our work schedules are going to remain long and demanding, we still wanted to continue raiding, but on a better schedule for us.
And so here we are. A new realm, a new guild, a new raid team, a new raid size. A new role.
My focus on tanking will be shifting in the VERY near future, as I am picking up my off-spec for full time play. My focus on tanking, and a primary generator of traffic to this blog will be diminished, but I’ll still be doing it in 5-mans and as needed for raids. I will instead be resuming a role I performed in Wrath, stepping back from the action and into the healing mindset. This may change what I post, as healing posts aren’t incredibly exciting–so I will probably stick with more generalized strat discussion for Firelands Heroics and Dragon Soul as we progress through the content.
So thanks for sticking with me through the changes, and I hope you continue to find lots of amusement (and possibly education) here in the future!
–Miri
BlizzCon 2011 – Charity Dinner
Thrall, by Glenn Rane
Hello from BlizzCon! My BlizzCon experience started out much better than some–simply for the fact that I didn’t have to take on LineCon 2011 to get my badge!
Instead, I was able to sit in the lobby and enjoy the company of members of Enveloping Shadows: Rhidach, Antigen, and Ildara, in addition other guildies! I also am able to say that I had a drink with the amazing mathematical genius of the Paladin community: Theck! It was an absolute blast and the members of ES are an incredible group of people to hang out with!
Once their hotel room was ready, we parted ways, Ant and Rhi heading to the WoW Insider party and myself and Mal heading to our room to get ready for the Charity Dinner that night.
The dinner was lovely (I spent more time at the bar than I did eating, this came back to haunt me later), and I was able to speak with several members of the WoW development community!
I did get one on one time with Greg Street, Ghostcrawler! It was at the charity dinner that he broke the sad news to me that the developers would not be discussing the upcoming tanking changes that he had highlighted in the ongoing Water Cooler sessions. *sad Raz moment* I thanked him for his efforts and the open lines of communication that he has strived to maintain with the WoW community, while dealing with the absolute bottom of the WoW community that inhabits the forums.
I also got to speak with Mike Morhaime, who was a fun and energetic individual who is completely devoted to the growth and development of Blizzard. It was very refreshing to see a company President so in touch with his employees and it was readily apparent that he loves what he does.
J. Allen Brack was absolutely hilarious and incredibly honest to speak with regarding WoW in general! He told me that he was greatly impressed by my lore knowledge and my interest in the characters who inhabit the World of Warcraft universe! I also got to speak with his father, who is also a WoW player and currently working on Dragonwrath for his guild!
I got to speak with Chris Metzen and apparently my husband is the new “Red Shirt Guy” after that discussion! I didn’t realize it would be so easy to stump Chris regarding his own lore! We spoke to Chris regarding Sylvanas’ character development and inquired if we would see closure on Syl in Cataclysm or if her character would continue to develop through the next expansion. Chris confirmed that we shouldn’t expect resolution to the Plaguelands situation with Sylvanas and Koltira (damn!) in this Expac. He also confided that Sylvanas scares the shit of out him–and that she’s more batshit insane in his mind than Garrosh is. He actually fears Syl more than Garrosh! We stumped Chris on our inquiry about Lillian Voss. Apparently she has been completely forgotten as an NPC in Chris’s eyes! I felt that I should have gone and gotten Mal a red polo after that discussion!
Once we stepped away for the evening, we headed down to the Hilton lobby, where the parties were just getting started. I got to spend some time with Aldous and Sniz from TTGF, and even managed to draw Dee out of her hotel room after she had spent the entire day on a plane! There was a lot more alcohol consumption and there was a great picture that hit Twitter of me laughing so hard about something that I fell flat on my butt at our table (we were standing, not sitting). All in all, I’m sure Sniz is now very concerned about one of the guild’s tanks and her apparent sanity (or lack thereof).
Once Aldous and Sniz departed, and Mal chose to go to bed, Dee and I got to sit and talk Firelands (ick) and lore (yay!) for what resulted in several hours. Apparently during our discussion someone fell into the fountain in the bar and we both missed it!
I was gifted some of Dee’s lovely sketches (SHEEEEEEEPS!) and she even hand delivered popcorn cheese to me (which I’m staring at as I type this).
Anyway, it was a great kick-off for BlizzCon, and it made sitting through the first day of panels VERY difficult because I was up so late (and maybe partially hung over, but I’ll never admit to that)!
More to come on panel discussion, assuming I don’t fall asleep as I’m typing this!
PTR Stuff, Raiding, This is REALLY a To-Do List…
Mount Hyjal Healing (Untouched, raw file)
Yeayeayea…I’m still recovering from almost a week of being sick…during which the PTR hit, we downed Heroic Shannox, and I got my second binding for Thunderfury. It’s been a bit hellish and I’m trying to restore order to real life since it looks like a bomb went off at home. I actually had to be yelled at to make my own Friday night raid because I was so caught up with work and working with other raid teams on their Rag attempts.
Anyway, things to expect next week:
Transmog stuff – I may do a lame “here’s what I’m doing for Transmog,” the current costs, and info about the process on the PTR (find me as Razíel on Anasterian).(DONE, I finally finished this on 10/14 /flex)- Dungeon guides to the new 5-mans – so far the first one, End Time, is all that’s live, and it’s got some interesting mechanics. Loot is currently 378. (All the dungeons are up, I just haven’t had enough time to run them all yet)
- Thunderfury completion in pictures – I’ve said I will sell myself on the streets of Org for my 4 final ingots–this could get interesting. (All ingots gathered, I am cringing at the thought of MC again)
I’ve been learning to Blood tank on my DK (tanked T11 on Friday night, somewhat sober)–so I’ll start making some pointers from a fail Blood DK perspective in the near future–I’m tanking Firelands alt runs now. O.O(YEA NO, I did it, I don’t plan on doing it again–it wasn’t bad in the least, it just wasn’t Paladin tanking, which I’m so familiar with. I’ll leave DK smarts to the Blood DKs)- Heroic Shannox, AKA “MIRI WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU IN BETH’S AREA”–a guide to ALL the things NOT to do on H. Shannox (holy hell does that range enrage HURT). (AT SOME POINT. I need a couple more kills before I even want to think about this fight again)
BlizzCon prep – yes, I am one of several who will be at BlizzCon in the coming weeks. If you want to stalk me, buy me drinks, etc, I’ll have some info up on how to achieve this very weird and twisted fantasy.(DONE! And it’s got liquor stores included in it! Miri remembers the IMPORTANT STUFF)- Whatever else crosses my mind–I may also hit on H. Rhyolith as we worked on him some last week too! (Fuck Rhyo)
Enjoy the stupid picture of Raz in healing gear in Mount Hyjal from our OMG REP FARMING GIMME LOOT DAMNIT runs. Why I was healing, I don’t really know, but I was bored. REALLY REALLY BORED.
Also, Illidan can like…fall off a cliff or something–he still hasn’t produced my shield for Transmog purposes -.-
And now, I’m going to go pass out since I’ve had 2 cups of coffee and 4.5 hours of sleep. :c
Firelands Tanking – 10M Ragnaros
Ragnaros, Lord of the Firelands
Ragnaros, lord of the Firelands, embodies the fury and destruction of the primordial infernos that forged Azeroth itself. Promised the chance to set Azeroth aflame without interference from Neptulon and Therazane, Ragnaros seeks to appease the Old Gods by incinerating the World Tree of Nordrassil.
Ragnaros is a fun fight with a lot of raid awareness required. You need to be aware of your location, the location of your raid members, and be able to move as a group as needed during phases and transitions!
It’s unfortunate that we didn’t have 1-2 more hours on Monday night to clean up our attempts–we could have had Rag dead before nerf if we had just a couple more hours (seriously). Tuesday’s nerfs made the kill bittersweet, but that’s another post for another time. Let’s talk Rag V2.0!
Group Makeup
We’ve run so many different comps on Rag I can’t even remember them all. But here’s what we took in with us to the kill:
- Tanks
- Protection Paladin
- Protection Warrior
- Healers
- Holy Paladin
- Discipline Priest
- Restoration Druid
- DPS
- Frost Death Knight
- Fury Warrior
- Marksmanship Hunter
- Affliction Warlock – Traps
- Balance Druid
Phase 1
So Phase 1 for a tank is pretty basic. A tank (in this case, me), starts the fight and keeps Rag as he applies Burning Wound to his current target. We allow this to stack up to 3 (you can dodge/block/parry the applications, sometimes enough times that your current stacks will fall off!) before doing a tank swap. You’re keeping 6 yards between you and your co-tank during this time, and remembering to run back in after Hand of Ragnaros is cast.
While you’re watching stacks and doing swaps, your DPS and healers are having a blast (EDIT: I snerked rereading this for my fail pun) behind you, dodging lava waves from Sulfuras Smash, and dealing with Magma Traps, which, when activated, will cause the whole raid to take damage.
Our positioning for Phase 1 is as follows:
It is worth noting that only the tanks and melee will be in their respective positions for any given length of time. The ranged will be moving to dodge traps and the lava waves that spawn from Sulfuras Smash. The ranged and healer placement is a rough guess by me (I honestly have no clue where they stand as I’m staring at magma the entire fight).
Phase 1 ends when Ragnaros hits 70%, and then you get to check out the transition phase!
Phase 1.5 – Transition
The transition phases are a lot alike–there’s a bit more involved with the 2.5 transition, but we’ll cover that later.
Both transition phases have the opportunity to be one of three layouts. I have pictured them all below:
Left Hammer
Center Hammer
Right Hammer
We assign a number to the Sons of Flame so people know what they need to pick up add wise each time. Hence the numbers in the diagrams!
Sons have a buff called Burning Speed. Your goal is to DPS the Son down to 50% health, which is when he loses the Burning Speed buff. For every 5% of their health above 50%, they move 75% faster.
If Sons touch the hammer, they explode with a spell called Supernova. It does a ton of damage and will probably kill most of your raid!
The transition phase lasts 45 seconds or until the last Son dies. If a Son is still alive at the 45 second mark, he will explode and probably kill someone.
Phase 2
Phase 2 still sees Sulfuras Smash being cast and tanks still swapping due to the Burning Wound debuff. Magma traps are gone, but now you have Molten Seeds and Engulfing Flames to worry about.
Engulfing flames will cover a third of the platform and you must move out of them. Icy Veins has a good picture to describe the different zones in their guide. I recommend checking it out there.
So a pictorial representation of Phase 2:
Once Sons are dead, we are all located on the left side of the platform, as far left as we can get to drop our Molten Seeds.
So, at the start of this phase, everyone is hanging out on the left side, keeping a distance of at least 6 yards from each other. You’re dealing with Engulfing Flames (outlined earlier), so the raid will need to move as one when Engulfing Flames drops. You must be sure to stay spread out for seeds! Seeds are spawned at player locations–as soon as a seed spawns where you’re standing, you are moving across the platform as quickly as you can (in this case, you are moving to the large Diamond on the map). First rule of Molten Seeds: Don’t move until your seed has dropped! The seeds inflict up to 56K in damage each when they land–so you don’t want to stack seeds and explode your raid members by being careless.
So, we’re dodging flames on the ground, seeds that explode, and running across the platform!
When the seeds explode, they spawn little adds that are going to beeline to your raid team. The tank that isn’t tanking Ragnaros can pick them up while your raid AoEs them down. Usually we have done a tank swap right after seeds drop (so we’re in motion swapping)–I pick Rag up when he resurfaces for Phase 2, tank him until seeds drop, cotank moves and grabs Rag, I pick up adds, they get AoE’d down, and then I move to the far RIGHT side of the platform to taunt again.
At this point, your raid team should be a mirror of what they looked like on the left. Everyone is still doing the same thing (dodging Engulfing Flames, spreading for seeds, etc.) until seeds drop. Once the seeds spawn, we’re moving left across the platform to the moon, which you’ll notice is much further up on the platform to Rag. We’ve discovered that Rag will drop his hammer right where we stack. So we all go hug Rag, dodge the hammer, and burn down our adds.
You’ll keep repeating these actions until Rag is pushed to 40%!
Phase 2.5 – Transition
The 2.5 Transition sees exactly the same activity for your raid team. The one difference is that you have some new adds for the tanks to worry about.
During Phase 2.5, Lava Scions spawn, 1 in each of the large circles on the platform. In our raids, I grab one Scion and the other is misdirected onto me by our hunter on the other side. I mark one of the Scions for instant death and the DPS begin attacking it as soon as their Son of Flame is dead.
Lava Scions will randomly cast Blazing Heat on members of the raid, and the recipient will want to run their flames out to the back of the room. Very easy to deal with.
Hammer positions again:
Left Hammer
Center Hammer
Right Hammer
Like the first transition, this lasts 45 seconds or until all the Sons are dead.
Once again, the hammer can end up in any of the three positions listed above. Your team needs to be ready to burn adds no matter where it falls.
And then you’ve just got to push the final 30%!
Phase 3
Phase 3 can pretty much be summed up with Yakety Sax. I honestly have no freaking clue what happens on this phase, aside from Aldous, AKA the Boozekin, telling me that Rag’s balls are involved.
So, how Phase 3 appears to me (and probably the raid team):
As a tank, you’re still swapping on Rag for the Burning Wound debuff. At this point you should only have 1 Scion alive as well, so tanks are swapping mob responsibilities.
We have DPS burn the remaining Scion and then go full force against Rag. Killing the final Scion removes the Blazing Heat debuff from the equation, so you’re only worried about dodging Rag’s balls as well as the ongoing Sulfuras Smash AND Engulfing Flames (as if you didn’t have enough to worry about).
Meatballs, otherwise known as Living Meteors, will fixate on a player and follow them. If the meteor touches a player, it explodes. So basically, if you get linked, you want to run away from the raid and gently hit Rag’s ball away from you so it will fixate on another player. Make sure you don’t run your meatball into your tanks, your healers, or another pack of DPS. Basically, don’t run it towards ANYONE.
Rinse and repeat until Rag hits 10%, and your loot falls at your feet!
Conclusion
Once you get used to what this fight looks like, it’s pretty repetitive.
A couple things to note:
- The Mirror of Broken Images is a godsend on this fight. I pop mine with a Holy Shield whenever I pick up Rag.
- Don’t be afraid to use Divine Guardian for Phase 2 movement!
- Glyph Holy Wrath to stun the Sons if you’re bored during transitions!
Our World of Logs can be found here from our kill.
Welcoming the Boozekin
Make Your Own Caption, Mine are Pretty Tasteless Either Way (Picture by @_Rades)
TTGF raids are amusing. Guild chat is even MORE amusing. If you’ve ever had the opportunity to flip through my screenshots you’ve seen pictures of this newest Blogger, or even heard me yammering about him on Vent.
Late Night Guild Chat...
I give you, the newest member of the TTGF blogging family, Boozekin! Written by our very own Aldous! Aldous is one of our officers in TTGF, our official raid wiper, and my sometimes cotank on trash in Firelands. We’ve also drunk tanked Tier 11 content when we’ve been bored. His boss fight explanations are second to none, and his blog does a great job of capturing the fun and humor that he brings to TTGF.
His blog was born during random chatter last night on vent–at guild member urging, because Aldous is just too epic to be contained in just TTGF. He chose the name Boozekin after a questionable night in gchat that will remain with guildies until…well…until we have another epic quote night.
And thus, Boozekin was born
Rades has been capturing sound clips during random moments in vent, and has been able to provide us with some classic Aldous material:
- Aldous sings Staind
- Aldous “Drunk as Fuck”
- Aldous Reporting Reinforcements
- Aldous and the Metal Flute
- DLTBBB Part 1
- DLTBBB Part 2
- DLTBBB Part 3
Many thanks to Rades for hosting these recorded moments!
Be sure to check out Aldous’ blog, Boozekin: Musings of a drunk druid, for regular updates!
You can also tune in to the LiveStream tonight at 10p Eastern for Aldous raid shenanigans (since he’s doing trash with me tonight–not sure if he realizes it or not).
Anway! Raise your glass in welcome to our newest TTGF blogger!
–Miri
Search Term Q&A
I almost spilled my drink coming up with a caption...so...this is your caption.
So, today’s blog post is going to be in a bit different than anything I’ve done in the past. I spent today combing through the search terms that have sent people to my blog. Most I will try to answer as seriously as I can. The others are things that I read and did a double take on to make sure I read them right.
The breakdown is as follows:
- Firelands Boss Related Q&A – broken out by boss
- Firelands General Q&A
- Things that made Miri go O.o
So, without further adieu, I give you my VERY FIRST “Search Term Q&A”!
Blogger’s Note: These questions are UNEDITED and quoted exactly as they appear in my statistics page.
Firelands Boss Related Q&A
Shannox
Our Shannox queries seem to be focused on positioning (addressed in my Shannox 10M Tanking Strat) and on dealing with Crystal Prisons.
wow shannox pally cant drop jagged tear stacks
There’s only 1, maybe 2, time(s) that I can’t drop stacks on Shannox. Usually the first spear toss, and then if I screw up and Rip gets the Wary debuff before I can get him into position. As the Riplimb tank, it is my responsibility to help myself and my cotank drop our Jagged Tear stacks.
The Riplimb tank should always be tanking Rip near (but not on!) a Crystal Prison trap so that Rip can be immediately dumped when a spear toss occurs. Keeping Rip frozen in the trap gives both tanks time for their stacks to fall off. If for whatever reason you have a failed trap, notify your co-tank so they can begin kiting Shannox away from Rip to help with stack dropping. I’ve also been known to run towards Beth’s trash to stay away from Rip so I can drop stacks if I’ve got 5 seconds (or so left). This is usually seen when I’m jumping around far away from the raid.
Beth’tilac
Lots of Beth’tilac questions, so let’s get started!
beth’tilac leaving 2 spinners so healer and tank can get back up quickly
If the theory is to leave 2 Spinners up on the rare chance that a tank or healer falls through the web and needs to get back up on the web during an up-phase, the best bet would be to call for a wipe. If your tank falls through, Beth is going to eat your healer and/or any DPS up on the web before your tank can scramble back up to take her back.
The other thing that needs to be considered is that those Spinners are going to be hitting your ground team with fire–it does result in unnecessary healing, so your best bet will be to continue with killing all the Spinners and hoping that your web team can watch their footing.
beth’tilac + taunt on how many stacks?
The only time a tank should be taunting on Beth Phase 2 is when the Widow’s Kiss is applied to the other tank. When you see the emote go off in DBM, taunt, stay away from your co-tank, and go to town.
Phase 2 Beth’tilax Tanking Position
For Phase 2, we make sure Beth is as far away from any remaining adds, and then our positioning is as follows:
Positioning for Beth'tilac Phase 2
Now, this is a rough drawing. She usually ends up like this for us, but remember, this is just an understanding of positioning. You want your healers/ranged/melee grouped up behind Beth for AoE healing. Usually we will pop a Power Word: Barrier, a couple Tranqs, Divine Guardian, and a Spirit Link at the stack point to heal through the AoE damage.
How to Kill Beth’tilac if your tanks suck
I just had to include this one because my facial expression when I read this was: O.O – If your tanks are having issues with Beth’tilac, there needs to be more investigation–are CDs not being used, are they too far away for healing, etc. Beth is not a hard fight on the tanks, if they are struggling now, it will probably only get worse as you progress through Firelands!
Rhyolith
Not much here, but let’s address this one:
howto pally tank lord rhyolith adds
For me, it was really discovering a rhythm to the fight before I stopped stressing about the adds. If I recall correctly, the add spawn set-up is 1/ small adds, 2/ small adds, 3/ big add. Rinse repeat. My DPS actually figured it out–I just watch the timers.
The add DPS/healer team hangs out with me on the outer edge of the platform–basically where you buff up before the pull. Our add spawns usually cooperate and pop over near us, so there’s not much movement. If there is, your heal team needs to be VERY aware (and so do you as a tank) that they need to be in motion with their tank. If they tunnel vision and don’t move, it will be a very messy fight.
When the small adds spawn, I’ll usually AS the furthest out ones (running Dazing Shield for this fight) and then Holy Wrath as they get close. Then I just launch into my normal AoE attack rotation until the adds are dead. Rinse and repeat for the small adds.
With the big add, I usually taunt, AS, and am moving to the edge to get in position–I tank the big add as close to the edge as I can so if the leg melee pass close by with Rhyo, they aren’t taking unnecessary damage. Remember to use your CDs (Divine Protection SHOULD be glyphed for this fight), and use Holy Shield as necessary. I try to avoid using Guardian until Phase 2, but if you need the protection, then use it. If you’re dead, there will be no Phase 2. I also call out in Vent to “get away” to my team, and if the add spawns in an unusual location, I will update my healers on where I’m taking the mob.
Remember, clear and quick communication on this fight is for the benefit of all. Your melee are probably communicating leg DPS changes, and you need to message to your DPS and healers what you’re doing.
Baleroc
“decimation blade” “ardent defender”
YES. A THOUSAND TIMES YES. If you are the Decimation Blades tank, Ardent Defender should be part of your CD rotation.
You will probably only be able to use it once, if you can use it twice, then definitely–If AD is off CD and you’re about to eat blades, USE IT.
cd rotation for paladin tanks on baleroc
So, my gear list for Baleroc is as follows: Please note, I don’t usually run in an avoidance set and I don’t usually actively collect for it–your avoidance gear will probably vary from mine, but you should equip as many pieces as you can for this fight.
- Neck: Stoneheart Necklace
- Cloak: Durable Flamewrath Greatcloak
- Legs: Reinforced Sapphirium Legguards
- Feet: Pyrelord Greaves
- Trinket(s): Vial of Stolen Memories, Moonwell Phial
First Decimation Blade alert, I taunt, pop Ardent Defender, Holy Shield, and one of my trinkets, usually the Vial of Stolen Memories. I eat my three blades, and my co-tank taunts Baleroc back.
Second Decimation Blade, I’m going on the assumption that AD is NOT off CD. If it is, then use it again. Same with the trinket. If it’s NOT, then I pop the Moonwell Phial, Holy Shield, hit Divine Protection and I may pop Guardian of Ancient Kings for good measure.
I usually only see 2-3 Decimation Blades a Baleroc fight now. You should have no issue timing your CDs to have them available for each.
Just remember, your block does NOTHING for you on Baleroc as Decimation Blades cannot be blocked. They can be dodged or parried, so adjust your gear as needed. Usually on Baleroc, my block falls to around 53%–once I pick up some more avoidance gear, that number will continue to decrease.
Using this theory, my health may only plummet once over the course of the fight due to a blade not being absorbed, dodged, or parried!
Alysrazor
Lots of Alys questions! Let’s get this started!
hop during tantrum on alysrazor
Can’t say I’ve ever done this on purpose. I’m also not sure why you would. Use a feather, if you can, use two for the speed boost. You should be aware of your bird approaching Tantrum status. Be near a worm (but not too close that you’re taking Lava Spew damage) so that when Tantrum pops, you can pop Holy Shield, maybe a Divine Protection (which should STILL be glyphed), to help reduce the damage of a Tantrum.
how to avoid fire worms on alys
Here’s a drawing of roughly where I stand (Diamond) for Phase 1. I honestly have no clue where my co-tank stands, because I don’t pay attention. If you are at just the right place, you won’t be hit by the Lava Spew!
Phase 1 Rough Positioning
You’ll want to keep your Hatchling fairly immobile because you are working to maximize your DPS. I try to limit my movement as much as possible, only moving to eat worms. I find that this position gives me the least amount of movement during this phase. Once your DPS gets really good on the Hatchling, you’ll probably start eating worms just to get them out of the way, Tantrum or not. I usually will have my Hatchling eat a worm at 70% if he hasn’t Tantrumed yet, another at 50% and then the final two at 30% and 15%. It really depends on how good your DPS is though and if you are confident that you won’t need the worms later.
tankadin dps roation for alysrazor
alysrazor paladin tanking tips
Two questions, basically asking the same thing, so let me outline how I do Alys–first with gear and buffs, then my rotation.
I’ve already covered the gearing and consumables I use for tanking my Hatchling in my Alysrazor 10M Tanking Strat guide, so I don’t feel there’s anything greater for me to cover. But, the rotation I can definitely share!
You should be able to get a full stack of Holy Power before your Hatchling even hatches–in order to to this, go join your melee DPS on your side of the room with their Blazing Talon Initiate. Our add is usually dead slightly before my Hatchling spawns, so I’m able to get into position with a full 3-stack of HP. As soon as the bird hatches, I pop Inquisition for the bonus damage, then immediately cast Divine Plea and Avenging Wrath. I can also use the Deathblood Venom I highlighted in my strat guide. Remember though, you are allotted only one Deathblood Venom per fight! I have swapped glyphs around so I’m using Focused Shield and Crusader Strike for the bonus damage. I perform my normal tanking rotation, spending my 3 HP on Shield of the Righteous (and ONLY when I have 3 HP), and using Avenger’s Shield whenever it’s available (either by normal CD or Grand Crusader procs).
If you stick to this for every Phase 1, your Hatchling should be dead in no time, and I usually have 10-20 seconds to jump around like a fool before Phase 2 starts.
Firelands General Q&A
There was just one thing that I thought was a great question and wanted to address. Simply because when we got to this point, my raid team would have loved to have known what to do. Instead we winged it, wiped, and then learned from our mistake. My goal is to help others avoid wiping on this pull!
Blazing Monstrosity Strat
Honestly, I had to go look up what the Blazing Monstrosity was when I saw this. I scuttled off to WoWHead, and low and behold, there was a picture of a mob that gives us much humor each time we do the pull.
A Chicken on a Chicken...
There’s a bit of activity going on with this pull, so let’s talk chicken!
- Tanks will be picking up the two Druids of the Flame and tanking them as normal.
- Two DPS will be running to the Blazing Monstrosities in the back of the room. These adds are able to be mounted like a vehicle and the DPS will be able to control them. Their responsibility is to aim their bird at one of the two egg piles in the room and cast fireballs on the eggs so that the tanks and the remaining DPS and healers don’t get overwhelmed by baby chicken hatchlings.
- Once the Druids are dead, I proceed to AoE tank the baby chickens as they run into the raid. Just collect and burn them down with your DPS.
- Once the egg piles are dead (along with all the baby chickens), your DPS can switch to the gigantic birds and begin to burn them down. The bird drivers can also turn their birds at each other and have a fireball battle with each other, damaging themselves so that they die even more quickly. Just make sure they aren’t hitting the raid with the fireballs–you’re trying to avoid unnecessary damage!
Our last Alys kill, one of our healers jumped onto one of the birds and had fun. We barely have any raid damage, so we were able to get away with it <.<
Things that made Miri go O.o
There were only a couple…but…
night elf tied up
Now, I have a TON of hits about Night Elves. Apparently there’s some massive Night Elf fetish for WoW players. That’s great, but, I think they are hippies and will try to avoid ANY references to Night Elves (aside from my experimentation before the Burning Crusade launched…) in the future. I’m a die hard Sin’dorei, so…yea…
But ANYWAY. This string. “Night elf tied up.” 
Just…just damn. I hope you found the porn you were looking for searcher…
Moonwell Chalice WoW Pally Tank
… The Moonwell Chalice and Paladin Tank should never be used in the same sentence. Why anyone would be considering an Int trinket for tanking is of a bit of concern. I’m hoping you were looking for the Moonwell Phial instead!
It’s a Wrap!
So, this actually turned out to be rather long (and it was actually longer but I forgot to save a draft before I did a reboot of my PC earlier). I’ll probably make it more of a monthly feature if the search strings are good!
Hope you enjoyed, and maybe even learned, some additional information to help make you (and/or your raid team) successful in Firelands!
